Fluorine or gases rich in fluorine are required for many applications that take advantage of fluorination and reactions which comprise such diverse areas such as metal welding, formation of protective coatings or reactants for chemical lasers.
The compositions or methods of the instant invention described in the following disclosure are useful for any applications where fluorine is required and in particular for generators providing reactants for chemical lasers.
Presently fluorine or other gaseous fluorine compounds such as NF.sub.3 or ClF.sub.5 are stored in gaseous form in high pressure cylinders or as cryogenic liquids at low temperatures. The storage of fluorine or fluorine compounds in gaseous form requires a volume of about 10 times larger than liquid storage.
Therefore it would be readily apparent that it would be greatly beneficial to be able to store gaseous fluorine and fluorine containing compounds in a liquid or solid form. A gas generator utilizing this principle is fully and completely disclosed in this invention.
The storage of fluorine or fluorine compounds embedded in a solid matrix or any other solid form has the advantage of safe, efficient storage at ambient temperature and pressure.
There has been a great deal of effort, time, money and research made to develop solid F.sub.2 /NF.sub.3 generators. None of these efforts have been, prior to the instant invention completely successful.